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Battle of Kallemuth
The Battle of Kallemuth was a decisive Naval engagement between Battlefleet Deus of the Imperial Navy and a Dark Eldar raiding fleet of the Kabal of the Bloodmoon that had plagued Sector Deus for almost ten years. In this battle the Dark Eldar were successfully lured into the Kallemuth System, a dead system only used as a warp jump waypoint by Imperial shipping, where they were ambushed by the Imperial Fleet under Lord Admiral Hagen . While the Dark Eldar vessels were far swifter, the Imperial Fleet had superior numbers & firepower and rapidly encircled the Xenos, destroying them one-by-one. Background The Commorite raiding fleet of the Kabal of the Bloodmoon (with wyches of their allies The Archrazor Cult also amongst their assault parties) had caused problems for Sector Deus for years, raiding the worlds of Arcadia, Eregriis, Lemuria, Viridia, and Artorion's Gate at the least and likely striking other non-Imperial worlds too. Imperial merchant shipping was also savaged, and at least seventeen Chartist transport ships were lost to suspected Dark Eldar attack between 335.M41 and 345.M41. Action needed to be taken, and Lord Admiral Tyrel Hagen assembled a Naval task force with the sole puirpose of destroying the Dark Eldar. Consisting of his flagship - the Emperor-class Battleship Unbreakable, along with a heavy cruiser, 2 full cruisers, 4 light cruisers (including the Unbreakable's heavy escorts Eminent & Erudite), and 8 escort squadrons, it far outnumbered the reported Dark Eldar fleet. But Hagen knew that overwhelming force was of paramount importance and the cunning xenos would exploit any weakness to devastating effect. Hagen then had distress beacons and old dead hulls placed in several empty warp waypoint systems in the Core Worlds, and distributed his task force across the entire Subsector to watch over these lures while under silent running. Over the course of several weeks the bait was not taken, and Hagen was on the brink of being forced to call off his operation by pressing Naval needs elsewhere. However the greedy Dark Eldar eventually succumbed to temptation and zeroed in on a distress beacon in the Kallemuth System. The Battle The Dauntless-class Light Cruiser Lord Belisarius, along with its escorts Belisarius Squadron, were posted in the Kallemuth System when the Dark Eldar fleet arrived. The Lord Belisarius issued an alert to the entire task force across the Subsector, and fortunately their astropathic message went undetected as the Dark Eldar moved from the system's outer reaches towards the source of the distress beacon. As the Dark Eldar neared the source of the beacon - an old Jericho-class transport hulk - Imperial Navy ships began warping into the system from all sides. Hagen's decision to distribute his force around the Subsector meant they were now arriving from all sides of the Kallemuth System - the entry to which was well mapped from all angles thanks to its long-held waypoint status - and the Dark Eldar fleet found itself being rapidly encircled as Navy ships continued to arrive from all directions. 'Opening Void Engagement' Mere moments of hesitation on the Dark Eldar's part sealed their fate, and they were soon completely blocked from escape by a rapidly shrinking blockade of macrocannons, lances, and torpedoes their fragile ships would be hard-pressed to survive. Several of the xenos' escorts were destroyed by overlapping fire as they attempted to breach the tightening blockade, before waves of Attack Craft - led by Flight Captain Keryl Mardon - from the Unbreakable assaulted the bulk of the raiding fleet as it grouped ever closer together to avoid the Imperial fleet's main weapons. Navy bombers wraught massive destruction on the grouped Dark Eldar vessels, and though a number of Attack Craft were lost or damaged by enemy turret fire the fragile xenos vessels - with no room to manouevre - were sitting ducks for their powerful plasma bombs. Fragile Dark Eldar escorts broke apart completely under the bombers' onslaught, and in typical Dark Eldar faction abandoned their commanders & comrades. But these Corsair-class escorts that tried to use their superior speed to escape - leaving the Cruisers behind - were countered by Navy escort squadrons that headed off any attempted escape route and outgunned the Xenos vesssels with superior numbers. A few Imperial escorts were severely damaged by the desperate Dark Eldar, and the Sword-class Frigate Mauler II suffered a delayed plasma drive detonation after it was struck by a phantom lance from a Corsair-class escort that was destroyed soon after. The Dark Eldar Cruisers began suffering heavy damage from the bombers, and left with no other option the two remaining non-crippled cruisers - one containing Archon Yzgan Raez of the Kabal of the Bloodmoon - attempted to breach the Imperial encirclement. Knowing that aiming for a point between Imperial capital ships would result in two hitting them from either side, they instead made a bee-line straight towards the Lunar-class Cruiser Perdition's Herald, hoping to break through it before the other Imperial capital ships could come to its aid. The two Torture-class cruisers launched waves of boarding craft ahead of them to throw the Herald into disarray and allow for their escape, and while most of the boarding craft were destroyed by massed turret fire from the Herald and its escorts, some managed to board and spill wyches & kabalite warriors into the Lunar-class Cruiser's decks. 'Boarding Action' The Dark Eldar boarders - consisting of warriors that had resurrection arrangements in place and who had been promised extra payment should Raez escape - viciously assaulted the crew of the Herald and cut a bloody swathe through the cruiser's decks while disabling and damaging as much of the ships' systems as they could. Led by Succubus Nyxe Lermalla of the Archrazor Cult, the wyches & kabalites far outclassed the armsmen & voidsmen they faced but were sorely outnumbered by hundreds to one. The decks of the Herald became a brutal slaughterhouse as the Dark Eldar were cut down piecemeal. On the starboard gun decks a squad of Wyches cut down almost an entire gun crew before they were put down by a battery of shotcannons, and a platoon of Kabalites that attempted to breach the engine decks almost reached the plasma core itself before they were put down by murder servitors and power armoured Enginseers. Lermalla herself led a squad of her best Hekatrixes in search of the cruiser's central life support systems, and butchered their way through every armsman squad put in their way until they found the central air filtration systems guarded by a full platoon of Naval Stormtroopers. The elite soldiers cut down several Hekatrixes with precise hellgun fire and billowing flamethrowers, and after cutting her way through almost a dozen Scions the Succubus Lermalla was finally wrestled down to the ground by four men before Tempestor Prime Graene Bourle finished her off with his combat shotgun. While the boarding action failed to put the Herald out of action completely, it was unable to bring its full firepower to bear and Archon Raez' vessel breached the blockade. During its escape Archon Raez' vessel was blocked by Bastion Squadron of 4 Sword-class Frigates but the swift Drukhari vessel blew through them without pause, hulking Bastion I with its plasma batteries while cutting Bastion III in half with its phantom lances, killing ~17,000 voidsmen and Commander Aiden Karliss in the process. Meanwhile the other Torture-class Cruiser - named Hopeslayer - was accosted by the Dauntless-Class Light Cruiser Janville and battled with the outclassed Imperial vessel. The Janville inflicted some serious damage on the Drukharii vessel with its prow lance battery but the Dark Eldar replied with a wave of advanced torpedoes that tore through the light cruisers' hull, inflicting massive damage. Already crippled, the Janville was then struck by a fusilade of weapons battery fire from the fleeing Hopeslayer that reduced the light cruiser to a drifting hulk. Fortunately the Drukharii were too eager to flee to destroy the Janville properly, and the Herald managed to snap off a burst from its portside lances that struck Hopeslayer's stern and crippled the Dark Eldar vessel, leaving it easy prey for a swarm of Imperial escorts to destroy completely. 'Closing Actions' One Torture-class Cruiser and a handful of Corsair-class Escorts had escaped, but the rest of the smouldering Dark Eldar fleet had been severely damaged. Waves of Dark Eldar escape pods flew in all directions as the Dark Eldar vessels were mercilessly blown apart one-by-one by long range Imperial fire, and while many were destroyed or successfully escaped a small number were captured by Imperial vessels and handed over to the Inquisition. Of those that escaped little is known. A few are known to have been captured by independent factions in the wake of the Battle such as Chartist Captains and smugglers. Whether the rest had any means of escaping the system or just starved to death in their pods is unknown. The Dark Eldar transports - until now huddled unharmed in the very centre of the Drukharii fleet - began broadcasting desperate offers for parlay, emphasising the tens of thousands of human slaves trapped within their heaving holds. Lord Admiral Hagen knew there was no bargan he could make with the Dark Eldar that could be trusted, but as the Imperial fleet approached close enough to begin boarding actions the Drukharii transports began bursting into flames. Armsmen from dozens of Imperial vessels swarmed onto the transports and began evacuating rescued slaves, discovering the ships empty of the Dark Eldar themselves. In the confusion a pair of the transports - free of any self-inflicted damage - sped away from the carnage, presumably with the crews of the other transports on board. While over sixty thousand human slaves were rescued, Lord Admiral Hagen was reportedly reprimanded by the Inquisition for prioritising their lives over destroying all the Dark Eldar when he had the chance. But the Lord Admiral's popularity in the wake of this notable victory spared him from further consequences. Aftermath The Dark Eldar raiding fleet had been almost completely destroyed, and Sector Deus would not feel the sting of large scale Drukharii raids for many years to come. Merchant shipping in subsequent years also reported much safer conditions and Imperial morale at the news of the fleet's destruction - especially amongst those worlds that had been raided by it - soared. The Imperial Navy enjoyed a wave of boosted popularity following the battle, and recruitment across the Sector as well as donations to the institution from Imperial Nobility saw a large jump. Lord Admiral Hagen was awarded the Naval Command Star by the Segmentum Admiralty on Cypra Mundi and saw a boost to his own prestige too. The Inquisition thoroughly interrogated the Drukharii prisoners, though whatever they learned was highly classified and the prisoners all died within a few months. Most of the deaths were caused by suicide as the prisoners gradually became weaker and weaker despite being sufficiently fed. Those few that were unable to kill themselves eventually died in their cells from mysterious causes, presumed to be the Dark Eldar 'thirst'. Meanwhile the non-Imperial societies in Deus saw a noticeable increase in Dark Eldar in the months following the Battle. A number of Dark Eldar slaves - taken from escape pods recovered by independents after the battle - began circulating in the Sector's illegal slave industry. Meanwhile larger numbers of free Dark Eldar were also noted on independant worlds and deep void stations - presumed to be from escape pods that successfully escaped the system. Category:Naval Battles